All the philosophy that's not fit to print.

My adventures in assessment began in 2004 when I was assigned to the General Education Assessment Committee. I have served on that committee since then and have become the co-chair. I have also always done the assessment for the Philosophy & Religion unit (it is part of a larger department formed during the consolidations of the 1970s). As would be expected, assessment for the unit is just an extra smooshed into the infinitely expandable 20% of my Assignment of Responsibility (which also includes advising, research, web mastering, facilitating, publishing, and 4-9 committees).

When I first started in the assessment business, most of it seemed quite arbitrary. For example, we were told by the assessment guru that we needed five outcomes to assess. I still assess five outcomes. As another example, we were told that our goal should be that 80% of Xs do Y; for example, that 80% of students achieve a rating of competent or better in an outcome. When one asked why 80% was picked, the answer was simply that this was what was to be done. To be fair, almost everyone uses 70% as the cutoff for a C grade because that has what has always been done and what everyone does. Which is to say that we use an appeal to tradition and an appeal to common practice.

As is always the case, the years have seen more and more added into the assessment process—I now attend multiple committee meetings, collect data from all the faculty in the unit, and create stacks of spreadsheets with sweet pie charts. I then do an analysis of each outcome, craft improvement narratives and write an extensive reflection. All of this gets loaded into a LiveText system for review by multiple levels of administrators. Its final fate is to be part of various collective reports. While much could be written about any part of this system, the focus of this essay is on the improvement narrative.

As noted above, the performance of the unit is assessed in terms of five outcomes. For example, the written communication skills of students are assessed as part of the written communication outcome. Once the data for the academic year is gathered and properly spreadsheeted, I do an analysis and then an improvement narrative for each assessment method within the outcome. For example, I do an analysis of draft performance relative to final paper performance as part of the written communication outcome and then write an improvement narrative that maps out a timetable and budget for the improvement. The budget part is easy: we do not get a budget for any improvement, so that is a simple copy-paste operation.

The idea of writing an improvement narrative can be reasonable. After all, if the unit is falling short on an outcome or otherwise encountering problems, then it makes sense to develop a plan for addressing these shortcomings or problems. For example, the students tend to do poorly in the area of written communication. One obvious reason for this is that students are generally less prepared in K-12 in writing argumentative papers than they were in the past. As such, the faculty must address this shortcoming in student preparation in order to bring our results up to the 80% target. That said improvement narratives can also be problematic.

One practical concern is that there is a practical limit to improvement. To use an obvious analogy to sports, an athlete can only improve so far before the cost of improvement becomes prohibitive and there is a point at which further improvement is no longer possible. The same is also true in education: even if improvement is possible, the cost of doing so will be prohibitive and hence there will be a point at which improvement is not rational. One example of this is when trying to improve in one area must come at the expense at making another area worse. To illustrate, the more a philosophy professor tries to make up for the K-12 educational shortfall in writing skills the less time they will have to address everything else—such as philosophy. Continuing the athlete analogy, it makes sense that professors also have skill caps—they will reach a point at which they cannot get any better and improvement will no longer be possible. It might be objected that a professor can always improve something and hence there must always be improvement narratives. This leads to the more abstract concern of endless improvement.

As might be imagined, one cannot simply write “we are meeting our goals and need no improvement” as part of the improvement narrative. There must always be an improvement narrative that includes improvement narratives. This assumes the possibility of endless improvement. On the one hand, it could be claimed that there is always room for improvement—unless the professor is a perfect being teaching a perfect class to perfect students. This is obviously true. On the other hand, endless improvement is a practical impossibility. One could even say that there is a seeming paradox here: imperfect beings can always improve, but imperfect beings will always hit their limits. As such, imperfect beings cannot always improve. So, what should be done about improvement narratives?

One approach is to be practical and realistic: focus on actual problems and areas that can be improved while having the freedom to claim that areas where the acceptable levels are being maintained are not going to be improved. That is, to say that the performance is good enough given the available resources and pay. This is what I strive to do and is what good assessment should be like. I take the same approach to my running: I know where I can improve and, more importantly, that time and injuries have put a hard cap on my performance. That is to say that without magic or technology, I’ll never run another 2:45 marathon or a 33 minute 10K.

Another approach is to engage in the narrative for the sake of the narrative: if people must write an improvement narrative for everything, even when they know damn well that there is no way that something is going to be improved, people will craft suitable fictions to appease the administration. On the plus side, this will check all the requisite boxes. On the minus side, it is demoralizing to do this and, to be honest, dishonest. I try to avoid doing this.

One especially interesting thing about improvement narratives is that there is the expectation, as noted above, of endless improvement. However, for most faculty their salary is largely detached from their performance and improvement: they receive no improved compensation or benefits for improving the results of outcomes. The only practical incentive is to stay above the level at which one can be fired for cause and to perform well enough for tenure and promotion; other than that, there is no practical incentive to improve. Most faculty, of course, are motivated by pride and professionalism to do a good job and improve—so it is good that people are not solely motivated by gain. But higher education is being pushed ever deeper into the business model and a key concept in business is that you get what you pay for. So, if constant improvement is expected, then there should also be a corresponding increase in compensation based on this. If such improvement is valued and required, then there should also be adequate support provided to achieve that improvement. Expecting someone to always improve without any improvement in compensation and without any increase in resources is to expect far too much. Now, back to my data analysis and narrative crafting.

Back in July of 2002 the New England Journal of Medicine published a study on arthroscopic surgery. This study featured the usual division between the control group and the experimental group. The experimental group received real surgeries and the control group went through placebo surgeries. Somewhat surprisingly, patients who received the placebo surgery reported both feeling better and performed better at walking and stair climbing than patients who had received the real surgery. After reading this study, I wrote “Lies…the Best Medicine?” and it appeared in my What Don’t You Know? While working through my massive backlog of magazines, I came across a 2018 update on placebo surgeries in Scientific America in which Claudia Wallis argued in favor of fake operations. Reminded of my ancient essay, I decided to revisit my thoughts on the ethics of using placebo surgeries.

As in my old essay, I think that there is a decent argument against using such surgeries. The basic idea is that treating a patient with a placebo requires deceiving the patient. If the effect requires that the patient believe that they have received a real surgery, then the patient must be convinced of an untruth: that they received real surgery. If the medical personnel are honest and tell the patient that the surgery was fake, then they would not benefit. If it is generally wrong to lie, then this deceit would be wrong. What would make it even worse is that medical personnel, as medical professionals, should be honest with patients. Thus, even if placebo surgery is effective or even more effective than real surgery, then it should not be used.

One interesting counter to this argument is to note that even when patients know they are receiving a placebo, it can still be effective. As such, medical personnel could be honest with patients about their receiving a placebo surgery and still maintain the effectiveness of the non-treatment. This would allow the use of placebo surgery while avoiding the moral problem of deceit. However, this does not solve the problem in cases in which patients must be kept in the dark about whether they are receiving the real surgery or not. To be specific, placebo surgery is often used to test the effectiveness of surgeries in a rigorous manner. If the real surgery is no better (or even worse) than a placebo, then there would be no medical reason to use the surgery over a placebo or no surgery at all.

It can be argued that deception in such situations is acceptable. One approach is to point out examples of acceptable, beneficial deception. Obvious examples include the benign deceits about Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy. As another illustration, there are the lies people tell so to avoid causing others suffering or to spare their feelings. If this sort of benign deceit is acceptable, then so is the use of deceit to produce the placebo effect or to conduct a study for the greater good.

A second approach is to focus on the purpose of the medical profession. While philosophers and scientists are supposed to seek the truth, the end of medicine is to relieve pain and prevent or cure ills. If deception, in the form of a placebo, can achieve the end of medicine, then it is just one more tool—like a scalpel or drug. In fact, it could be argued that effective placebos are even better than drugs or surgery. Surgery always involves some risk and even mild drugs have side effects. Placebos would, presumably, involve little or no risk. That said, it is worth considering that there could also be mental side-effects with placebos.

Since placebo treatment is usually not free, it could be objected that it is still wrong: patients are charged, and nothing has been done for them. If medical personnel were using placebos to cover up illnesses and injuries while pocketing profits from fake treatment, then that would be a problem. However, if the treatment is honest and works then it should be as legitimate as any other form of treatment. So, if a patient needs to see a doctor to get the placebo effect working properly and it works as well or better than the “real” treatment, then it is as reasonable to bill for the placebo treatment as the “real” treatment—although the price should be adjusted accordingly. If the placebo effect could be created without involving medical personnel, then charging patients for it would be morally problematic.

In the case of studies in which the subjects are not paying, then there would be no special moral concern for the use of the placebo—that would, in fact, be required for conducting a proper study. This does raise the usual moral concerns about conducting studies, but that is a subject worthy of consideration on its own.

When I was in elementary school my classmate, Danny, drew a swastika on his arm. The principal saw the Nazi symbol and reacted with righteous anger, making it clear that he hated the Nazis because they had killed his buddies during the war. After getting the infamous school soap and paper towels, he went to work on that Swastika. I think he would have scrubbed that arm to the bone to remove the symbol of evil; fortunately for Danny the ink yielded before his skin did. I must be clear that Danny was not a Nazi or even a white nationalist; he was just a kid doing something he thought was rebellious or cool without understanding the implications. That day had a lasting impression on me—whenever I see modern Nazis doing their thing, I still think of the anger of a man whose friends had been killed by the Nazis. He was, obviously, right to be angry and Nazis are not to be tolerated. But what about uninformed kids who display Nazi symbols or seem to do the Nazi salute?

Perhaps the best-known recent example of this occurred in Wisconsin: a group of students appear to be doing the Nazi salute in a photo. The initial response from school officials was to assert that they did not know the intentions of the students and that they could not be punished because of the First Amendment. Oddly, it was then claimed that the photo did not really show students engaged in the Nazi salute; it was claimed that they were waving, and it just looked like they were saluting. That is, as a matter of pure chance, they just happened to have their arms and hands in that position at the same time. While this is not impossible, the photo had been posted with the caption "We even got the black kid to throw it up” and this suggests that it was no accident of photography. It could still be claimed that it was an accident and the person posting it just took advantage of this unfortunate shot. This seems improbable, but not beyond the realm of possibility. If the photographer were just clicking off shots and that was just one in the series, that it would seem to be a simple matter to show that the students are just waving and happen to all be captured at the same time doing what looks exactly like a Nazi salute. Obviously enough, if the students were just waving, then there is no problem here. But, if the students were doing the Nazi salute, then the first defense needs to be addressed: are the students protected by the First Amendment (or the moral freedom of expression)?

As many others have pointed out, schools routinely and legally restrict the First Amendment rights of students even in very minor matters and without agonizing over the intention of the students. As a legal matter, the answer would seem to be that the students are not protected—unless the other restrictions are also illegal. A reasonable reply is that asserting a practice is legal and common provides no moral defense. After all, what is legal need not be moral and what is common need not be right (to think otherwise would be to fall victim to the fallacy of common practice). So, it could be argued that the school acted rightly in this matter by respecting the students’ right of free expression. However, holding to this position would entail applying the same principle consistently. So, if students have the moral right to make the Nazi salute without being punished, then they should have the right to express views of equal or lesser evil. As such, students should be allowed to throw gang signs, wear shirts emblazoned with “Eat the Rich”, dress as they see fit, and so on. After all, one cannot know their true intentions and the First Amendment protects them.

Being a supporter of free expression, I do think that schools are overly restrictive of student liberty. Being rational, I do recognize that rights and liberties must have limits. As thinkers like Hobbes and Mill have argued, liberty requires restricting liberty (and rights requires restricting rights). While this sounds very Orwellian or paradoxical, it is not. To use an obvious example, your liberty to express yourself requires a restriction of my liberty to silence you. As another example, your right to property requires restricting the rights of others to take your stuff. The moral and practical challenge is balancing rights, liberties and other moral concerns to determine what is best (or at least good enough).

As the opening of this essay indicates, the students doing the Nazi salute immediately brought to mind the incident from my past. I think that the principal acted rightly: the student needed to be taught that Nazis are evil and that displaying their symbol in school or at a school event, even in youthful ignorance, is not morally acceptable. As such, restricting students from displaying Nazi symbols at school or school events is morally acceptable. In the case of the Nazi salute, let us assume that the students acted from their youthfulness and not from being real Nazis. As such, they should be taught the truth about Nazi and why doing that salute is morally wrong.

It could be objected that this approach violates the students’ right to free expression and thought: they should be free to do the Nazi salute and even to be Nazis, if they do not break the law or harm people. This position is tempting, since people who do not take it can be accused of not really supporting the freedom of expression. After all, one might argue, if I silence Nazi expression, how can I truly be for free expression? The easy and obvious reply is that we all draw the line somewhere—there is some behavior or expression that cannot be accepted. For example, imagine a student who is a necrophiliac who specializes in bestiality and wants to express their ideas in class with a video or (partially) live demonstration involving the classes’ deceased guinea pig? Surely it would be acceptable to restrict that expression. As such, the ethics of restricting expression is not a matter of whether one accepts it as absolute or rejects it utterly but where the boundaries are located. What expression one defends indicates one’s moral views; to fight for Nazi free expression is a moral statement. This is especially relevant when what one defends is contrasted with what one restricts; that provides an interesting map of a person’s moral values. So, if a person rushes to defend Nazi salutes but balks at defending the rights of those in Black Lives Matter, then they have shown part of their moral map. Someone who leaps to defend the expression of transgender people but balks at defending Christian conservatives has also revealed part of their moral map. But, getting back to Nazis.

We know what Nazism is and where it leads; there is nothing new worth learning here from expressions of Nazism. As such, I am morally fine with restricting Nazi expressions, even when the expression is but a youthful rebellion done in ignorance. I understand people can say the same thing about what they do not like—this is the problem of having some rather than no moral limits: if you have moral limits, you must accept that other people will have them as well. But this is not to embrace moral relativism or subjectivism—accepting that others have different views of ethics is not to accept that everyone (and hence no one) is right. While people tend to treat freedom of expression as special, it is no different from other aspects of morality. So, just as some behavior (like murder) can be restricted while consistently holding that some behavior is morally fine, one can hold that some expression should be restricted (like Nazi expression) while some is morally fine. That said, one could take the position of absolute freedom—the sort envisioned in Hobbes’ nightmare state of nature.

In this essay on the dearth of conservatives in higher education, the possible oppression of conservatives will be considered. I am obviously not the first to advance this hypothesis, but it is certainly worth new consideration. The idea is a familiar one: a group is being unjustly discriminated against in an institution and this accounts for the under-representation of this group. In this case, the group is not defined by ethnicity, religion, or gender but by political ideology.

The claim that conservatives are victims of oppression/discrimination might be met with snorts of derision or even the assertion they are getting what they deserve. After all, conservatives have generally not expressed concerns about the exclusion of other groups. As such, it could be said that their concern is not based on a principle of fairness but on their lamentation that they are not dominating or at least a major force in higher education. The logical reply to this assertion is that their apparent inconsistency and their allegedly selfish motives are not relevant to whether their exclusion is just. After all, if it could be proven that feminists did not care about fairness and are motivated by selfishness, then it would not follow that they are wrong to claim that the underrepresentation of women in various fields is wrong. To believe otherwise would be to fall into a classic ad hominem, that a person’s motives or bias must discredit their claim. It is, of course, morally fine to point out inconsistencies between claimed ideals and actual behavior—but that is another matter. As such, the claim that conservatives are being unjustly excluded from higher education cannot be dismissed so quickly. The challenge is, of course, to provide evidence.

As noted in earlier essays, conservatives tend to respond to claims about oppression or exclusion by asserting low representation is due to the allegedly excluded being either uninterested or incapable. The same could obviously be done to their claim of discrimination, a matter discussed earlier in this series of essays. But the focus now is on trying to make the case for the claim of discrimination and I will set aside that counter and turn to considerations of evidence.

One obvious source of evidence is complaints from conservative faculty. This does occur and should be taken as seriously as any other claim of discrimination. Christopher Freiman, a fellow philosophy professor, has contended that a significant percentage of faculty have admitted they would discriminate against conservative applicants and he also points to claims of their being underplaced and fired at a higher rate than liberal faculty for political speech. This is the same sort of evidence that would be advanced to support a claim of discrimination against women or minorities and hence should be given the same sort of due consideration. To do otherwise would be mere prejudice and inconsistent with the moral principle that discrimination is wrong. That said, as conservatives will note when it involves others, claims about discrimination need not be actual evidence of discrimination. Ironically, the same tools and methods that conservatives have used to dismiss concerns about discrimination can be applied to their claims. However, to use them as weapons with the express intent of dismissing evidence would be a moral error—rather, the evidence should be examined neutrally with the tools of science and logic with a goal of determining the truth, whatever it might be.

Since I do not have the resources to conduct a proper large-scale investigation, I will begin with my own experiences. It must be noted that this entails a limited sample size and biasing factors. That said, I have served on or chaired numerous search committees over the years and not once was there an inquiry into the political ideology of the candidates. The job description, ranking standards and questions included nothing about political ideology and hiring decisions were made based on academic qualifications. As would be suspected, I and all the other members of the committees had to attend meetings about how to run job searches and the bulk of the meetings were spent on instructions on how to avoid discrimination (and lawsuits). Speaking with other colleagues across the country, no one has ever mentioned anything that would be evidence of discrimination against conservatives in their hiring practices. It should be noted that there was never a directive to seek ideological diversity in hiring—mainly because, as I said, ideology was never considered as a factor (positive or negative) in the hiring process.

There are a few obvious replies to my alleged evidence. One counter is to assert that I am lying—if I was discriminating against conservatives, I would surely deny it and carefully conceal all evidence. That is a fair point: as feminists and others have long pointed out, discriminators are inclined to lie about their discrimination. Those who think I am a liar will obviously not be swayed by my claims that I am not. Those would just be more lies to hide my other lies, at least in their eyes.

A second counter is that while I claim that we did not consider ideology or even inquire about it, we could surely infer a person’s ideology from their research, presentations and publications. For example, if someone gave a presentation entitled “reflections on the evils of capitalism within the context of cultural Marxism ideology” or “a stalwart defense of conservative values within the context of a biased academy”, then we could surely infer their likely ideology. This does have some merit: candidates can, of course, send signals to prospective employers via their research, presentations and publications. The influence can even be unconscious, as some claim occurs when people are biased against applicants with female or minority sounding names. The use of ideology signaling via these means is something I think is worth investigating—especially its potential for biasing (unconsciously or not) search committee members. As such, I would recommend this a research project—it would make an excellent subject for a dissertation.

A third obvious counter is that even if I am being honest, my experience is limited to one institution and a limited number of search committees. As feminists and others have long argued, the absence of evidence for discrimination in some cases is not evidence of the absence of discrimination in others. Of course, it is also the case that evidence of discrimination in some cases is not automatically evidence of broad or systematic discrimination. What is needed, then, is a proper investigation of the claim of discrimination. Fortunately, or unfortunately, discrimination against women, minorities and others has resulted in the creation of tools and methods to ferret out discrimination and these should be neutrally applied to see if there is evidence of the systematic oppression of conservatives within higher education. If it is occurring, then it can be addressed with methods analogous to those used to address discrimination against women, minorities and otehrs. For example, job descriptions might start including “we encourage conservatives to apply” and affirmative action programs might be created for avowed conservatives interested in academic careers.

As noted in previous essays, there is a diversity issue in higher education: liberals (or at least Democrats) significantly outnumber conservatives (or at least Republicans). Since the subject of diversity has long been addressed by conservatives, it makes sense to use their approach when inquiring into the lack of ideological diversity in the ivory towers.

When faced with claims about a lack of diversity in an area (such as a dearth of minorities or women), conservatives tend to have two replies. The first is one that I addressed in an earlier essay: the seemingly excluded group freely chooses not to go into that area. For example, one might try to explain the low relative numbers of minority tabletop gamers (D&D players, for example) by claiming that minorities are generally not interested in these games. The second explanation is that the seemingly excluded group is not as capable as the dominant group(s). For example, the shortage of women in top business, military and academic positions might be explained in terms of women being less capable than men in these areas. The more charitable might soften this claim by asserting that the excluded group is capable in other areas—areas in which they are more proportionally represented or dominant. For example, it might be claimed that while women are less capable than men when it comes to science or business, they are quite capable as nurses and grade school teachers. In some cases, these assertions are obviously true. For example, men dominate American football because the strongest men are far stronger than the strongest women. As another example, women are obviously vastly more capable than men as wet nurses or surrogate mothers. Since conservatives tend to find this explanation appealing, it is reasonable to advance it to explain the dearth of conservatives in the academy.

Put bluntly, it could be claimed that conservatives generally lack the ability to succeed in higher education. While there are some exceptions, the ideological distribution is fair because of the disparity in ability. This is analogous to how a conservative might claim that the lack of women in the upper levels of business, academics and the military is in accord with the distribution of ability: most women are not as capable in those roles as men, hence men justly dominate. Likewise, most conservatives are not as capable in higher education as liberals, hence liberals justly dominate.

One obvious reply is that ideology is different from sex or ethnicity. Conservatives can be of any sex or ethnicity (though they are overwhelmingly white and tend to be male) because ideology is a matter of the values a person accepts and not what they are. As such, it could be claimed, the idea that conservatives are less capable than liberals would make no sense. It would be like saying that deontologists are less capable than utilitarians, that impressionists are less capable than surrealists, or that Yankees fans are less capable than Red Sox fans. This does have some appeal, but I am reluctant to abandon the conservative explanation so quickly.

This reply can be countered by arguing that while ideology does not change a person’s capabilities, a person’s capabilities can determine their ideology. That is, people with certain non-ideological qualities would tend to be conservative while people with other qualities would tend to be liberal. While psychology is not even an inexact science, it does show some interesting claims about the differences between conservatives and liberals. For example, conservatives tend to be more afraid than liberals and hence have a greater desire for safety and security. Given these differences, it makes sense that people who tend to be conservative would be less capable than people who tend to be liberal in areas in which these differences would have a meaningful impact. Higher education, it can be argued, is just such an area: the qualities that would make a person more likely to succeed as a professor would also tend to make them liberal. In contrast, the qualities that would make a person more conservative would tend to make it less likely that they would be successful at becoming a professor.

While some liberals would be tempted to say that conservatives are stupider than liberals, this need not be the case. After all, becoming a professor is obviously not just a matter of being smart—most smart people are not professors and not all professors are smart. Conservatives can be just as intellectually capable as liberals, yet some of the other qualities that make them conservative could impair their ability to become professors. One factor is that the process of becoming a professor typically involves having one’s most cherished ideas questioned, challenged and even attacked over the course of years—something that those inclined towards being liberal might handle better. As charitable conservatives might say that women and minorities are well-suited for some areas, a charitable liberal might say that conservatives are well-suited for areas outside the academy.

If it is true that what makes people conservatives or liberals is relevant to their ability to become professors, then there are various solutions to the problem of diversity. One is to engage in a process of affirmative action for conservatives: preferential hiring and lower standard to balance out the numbers. The conservatives who oppose affirmative action would not be able to accept this approach—unless their stance on the matter is purely a matter of self-interest rather than a matter of principle.

A second approach is to see if the academy can be modified to be more inviting to conservatives without such affirmative action. For example, it might be that the way grad school classes are taught that tends to weed out conservatives from the ranks of professors. While conservatives are generally not fans of efforts of inclusion, they would presumably welcome such efforts when they are to their advantage.

At this point, some readers are no doubt thinking that the real reason conservatives are lacking in the academy is that liberals are to blame. It is to this that I will turn in my next essay.

As noted in the previous essay, it could be the case that either conservatives have good reasons to not want to be professors or professors have good reasons not to be conservatives. In this essay, I will offer some possible solutions to these problems in the hopes of encouraging more conservatives to enter the ivory towers.

If conservatives find academics unattractive because they can make far more income outside of the academy, then there are two general ways to motivate them into becoming professors. One approach is to argue that capable conservatives should “take one for the team.” That is, they should make the sacrifice of pursuing the far-less lucrative careers outside the academy for one within. While this would be a loss for the brave conservative professors, their sacrifices would benefit the community of conservatives. The challenge is, of course, persuading people who endorse self-interest as a core value to willingly act in a way that seems contrary to their self-interest.

Another approach, which would probably be more appealing, is for conservatives to offer financial support and rewards for conservatives who become and remain professors. This is already done to some degree but expanding the support and rewards would presumably help increase the number of conservative professors. One challenge is to ensure that the support and rewards go to actual conservatives—so there would be a need to police ideological purity to keep out clever liberals (or even secret Marxists) who might seek to exploit these opportunities to their own advantage. A possible downside to this approach is that such professors will probably be accused of bias resulting from their being paid to be conservative professors—but I will leave a solution to this problem to any conservatives who might be troubled by it.

One practical worry about supporting conservative students become conservative professors is that their experiences in graduate school and as faculty might turn them away from conservatism. For example, they might find the rhetorical attacks on experts and science to be off-putting. As another example, they might find the all-too-common hostility of Republicans to higher education problematic as they try to work within the area being attacked so vehemently by their fellows. This leads to the second problem, that of getting professors to want to be conservatives.

One option for conservatives is to modify their anti-expert and anti-science rhetoric. Rather than engaging in broad attacks on experts or science, they could confine their attacks to specific experts and scientific views. Those not being directly attacked might thus find conservatism more appealing. The Republican party could also change its general attitude towards higher education towards a more positive approach. They could, for example, return to providing solid funding for research and education. If professors believed that Republicans would act in their interest and in the interest of their students, they would be more inclined to support them. Conservative faculty would probably also be more likely to stay conservative.

Taking such steps could be problematic for the Republican party. After all, the anti-science stance regarding climate change and their broad anti-expert stance have proven to be very useful politically. Giving these up would come at a price. Providing support for public higher education would also put Republicans at odds with their views about what spending should be cut to allow tax breaks and their strategy of for-profit higher-education. As such, Republicans would need to weigh the cost of winning over professors against the advantages they gain by the policies that tend to alienate professors.

-Michael LaBossiere

While some have raised concerns that Marxism is a dire problem in higher education, a more realistic concern is that higher education is dominated by liberals (or at least Democrats). Conservatives (or at least Republicans) are in the minority, sometimes to an extreme degree. Such a disparity certainly invites inquiry. One motivation, at least for liberals, would be to see if there is any injustice or oppression behind this disparity. Another motivation is intellectual curiosity.

While sorting out the diversity problem of higher education might prove daunting, a strong foundation of theory and methodology has been laid by those concerned with the domination of higher education by straight, white males. That is, professors like me. These tools should prove quite useful, and beautifully ironic, in addressing the worry that conservatives are not adequate represented in the academy. But before delving into theories of oppression and unfair exclusion, I must consider that the shortage of conservatives in the ivory towers is a matter of choice. This consideration mirrors a standard explanation for the apparent exclusion of women and minorities for other areas.

One possible explanation is that conservatives have freely chosen to not be professors. This does make considerable sense. While not always the case, conservatives tend to be more interested in higher income careers than lower income careers. While the pay for full-time faculty is not bad, the pay for adjuncts is terrible. Professor salaries, with some notable exceptions for super-stars, tend to be lower than jobs with comparable educational requirements. So, someone who is interested in maximizing income would not become a professor—the same amount of education and effort would yield far more financial reward elsewhere, such as in the medical or financial fields. As such, conservatives would be more likely to become bankers rather than philosophers and accountants rather than anthropologists.

Since becoming a professor generally requires a terminal degree, the typical professor will spend six or more years in college and graduate school, noting the hostility of Republicans and the support of Democrats. As such, rational self-interest alone would tend to push professors towards being Democrats. There is also the fact that those who want to become professors, almost by definition, are intellectuals and want to be experts. As such, the attacks on experts and intellectuals would tend to drive them away from the Republican party. Those pursuing careers in the sciences would presumably also find the anti-science stances of the Republicans unappealing.

While my own case is but an anecdote, one of the reasons I vote for Democrats and against Republicans is that Democrats are more inclined to act in ways that are in my interest as a professor and in the interest of my students. In contrast, Republicans tend to make my professional life worse by lowering support for education and engaging in micromanagement. They also tend to make things harder for my students. The anti-intellectualism, rejection of truth, and anti-science stances also make the Republican party unappealing to me. As such, it is hardly surprising that the academy is dominated by liberals: Republicans would tend to not want to be professors and potential professors would tend to not want to be Republicans.

But perhaps there is a social injustice occurring and the lack of diversity is due to the unjust exclusion of conservatives from the academy. It is to this concern that I will turn in my next essay.

One talking point in the culture wars is that post-modern neo-Marxist college professors are indoctrinating the youth. Some take a more moderate view of college professors, simply regarding them as excessively liberal and indoctrinating the youth in liberal dogma. While I am confident that the academy is not ruled by Marxists, there are still interesting questions about the extent of Marxism on campuses, the degree to which liberals dominate the academy and whether professors indoctrinate their students.

It is true that there are professors who are avowed Marxists. I have even met some. In some cases, they do understand Marxism and its implications. These are, not surprisingly, usually political science or philosophy professors. I have also encountered professors who seem to think they are Marxists, but do not seem to understand what that means. For example, I met one professor who claimed to be a pure Marxist, but also rambled about free will and what seemed to be metaphysical dualism. Real Marxists are metaphysical materialists and embrace economic determinism. Fortunately, Marxists are relatively rare even in the social sciences and humanities. As such, the idea that the academy is ruled by Marxists is not true. This is not to deny that there are weird Marxist professors who preach rather than teach, but to point out that that they are very rare. I do, however, have considerable sympathy for students who get caught up in that nightmare.

It is true that professors tend to be politically liberal and it has been claimed they are becoming more liberal. From my own experiences interacting with faculty from across the United States, I do agree that professors tend to be liberal. I do suspect that the claim that they are becoming more liberal might be because the political right in America has headed further to the right. To use an analogy, the distance between two cars will change even if only one moves. In any case, let it be accepted as true that professors tend to be liberal.

That professors tend to be liberal is no more surprising than the military and business tending to have more conservatives. However, there is the reasonable concern that the academy that is supposed to educate people is dominated by the left rather than representing the ideological diversity of the country. Ironically, consistent conservatives would presumably oppose affirmative action or diversity initiatives aimed at recruiting more conservative faculty. However, they could still go out and earn terminal degrees or support other conservatives in doing so and thus help increase the number of conservatives in academics. It would be a positive thing to have more conservative intellectuals in the academy (and in general). After all, ideology without opposition in the academy leads to a multitude of sins, most especially intellectual laziness.

While the liberal domination of the academy is a matter of concern, there is also the question of whether these faculty strive to indoctrinate their students in leftist ideology. There is also the question as to whether if they try, they succeed. In my own case, I am careful to teach the class content without pushing my own ideology. For example, in my ethics class I do not try to convert the students to my own ethical theory—they get the tools of moral reasoning as well as information about a range of moral theories. But, of course, I am but one professor.

As would be expected, there are those who have researched the matter and argue that the academy does not indoctrinate students and that college does not make people more liberal. It could be contended that those making these claims are biased since they are liberal academics or liberals. This is a fair point: liberal professors and liberals defending the academy must be justly regarded as biased. This does not, however, entail that they are wrong or that their arguments are flawed—to think otherwise would be to fall victim to an ad hominem. This is because while bias provides grounds for suspicion, it does not disprove a claim. After all, the same sort of bad reasoning could be applied to the conservatives who claim that the academy indoctrinates students to be liberals—as conservatives, they would tend to be biased against liberals.

This question is an empirical one—researchers can comb through a representative sample of syllabi, PowerPoint slides, course notes, and recordings of lectures to find the relevant evidence for or against the claim of indoctrination. This research would need to meet the usual standards of a proper inductive generalization: the sample would need to be large enough and representative enough to provide strong support for the conclusion. Because of this, singular tales of crazed Marxist professors or professors who teach in a fair and balanced manner would not suffice as adequate evidence. Such appeals would be examples of anecdotal evidence, which is fallacious reasoning. This fallacy involves taking an anecdote as evidence for a general claim. Samples that are too small would result in the fallacy of hasty generalization and biased samples would result in the fallacy of biased generalization.

As would be expected, both conservatives and liberals can be tempted to use anecdotes, excessively small samples and biased samples to “support” their view. I am certainly open to the results of a properly conducted, large scale study of the academy—perhaps this is something that could be conducted by a bipartisan team of researchers. I am, of course, sure that there are some professors who do try to indoctrinate their students. This would be of concern, but the real worry would be if this occurred often enough to be a significant problem. One can use the analogy to how some make the point that while there are some bad police officers, this should not be taken as condemning the police in general. Likewise, for professors.

Even if it is found that a significant number of professors try to indoctrinate their students, there is also the question of whether they succeed. Having observed many professors across numerous institutions, I would say that we are generally not likely to indoctrinate our students. As the all too true joke goes, we have a difficult time getting them to do the readings, complete the work properly and show up to class. The idea that most professors can mold the youth into liberals with their diabolical temptations seems unlikely. This is not to say that professors have no influence at all nor to deny that there are not professors like Jordan Peterson who can sway the minds of the youth. But such charismatic corrupters are obviously quite rare—and would be more likely to pursue other, more lucrative careers.

It is worth noting that even if professors fail to indoctrinate their students, they are still wasting class time trying to preach rather than teach. This is a fair point—while off-topic discussions can be some of the best learning experiences in college, having a professor spending class time pushing their ideology rather than teaching is a disservice to the students. Of course, professors rambling about fishing stories, stamp collecting, or their favorite movies also wastes students’ time.

That said, it could be argued that professing does have a legitimate role in the classroom—if it has pedagogical value. Even if it does have some value, there is also the worry that by pushing a specific ideology, the professor will mislead the students about the merits or demerits of specific views. This all ties into the classic problem of the proper role of a professor—although the ideal often advanced today is that of a neutral conveyor of information and skills designed to prepare the job fillers for their existence as workers.

I used to think that, for Rousseau at least, there were two sources of shame: being inferior on objective grounds and being judged as inferior on more subjective grounds. I thought the shame we feel for being, say, weak or a failure seemed to me to be of a substantial different kind that the shame we feel in being rejected or sniffed at. The first one is based on objective shortcomings that generate shameeither when we compare ourselves to others or when we become frustrated with what we cannot do. The second one, in contrast, is eminently external in so far as it springs for not being evaluated or considered the way we would want to. Both are grounded on frustrations, but the first one seems to come from our objective shortcomings, while the second seems to come from our subjective ones.

However, once I asked Byron Davies, he – correctly, in my opinion – pointed to the fact that no, in strictu sensu one could say that we do not feel ashamed of being weak or a failure, but in being judged as weak or a failure. As a matter of fact, I would add, the very notions of ‘weak’, ‘a failure’ or anything we might think would be something we might feel ashamed of being is always judgment-dependent in the sense (I have clarified elsewhere)that even though it might denote an objective feature of us – our strength, appearance, material status, etc. – its extension is still fixed by appeal to social standards or, at least, the subjective standards of others. In other words, even though it is not rare to say that we feel ashamed of, say, having a waistline of more than 40 inches, what actually grounds our shame is the social construction of obesity as an – at least implicit – judgment on people like us.That is why we also feel ashamed of, say, never being kissed at certain age or of our parents not showingup to our sport events. So, in the end, there is only one kind of shame which always results from (a combination of) the judgement of others and our need for dignity.

A group philosophers stand at the feet of a hill; Bert draws a line on the floor surrounding the hill and ask: is this the edge of the hill?

William says: “I don’t know, it might be, but how could I know? There has to be an edge somewhere around here, and it might be here for all I know, but who knows?”

Gareth says: “Well, it is indeterminate whether this is it or not. Some questions do not have determinate answers, and this is one of them. Reality is just like that – hills are just like that.”

Arthur says: “Oh, yes, if you want to, it is ok. The hill has to have an edge so it might as well be this one if that is what you want. Whatever, it does not make much a difference, so yeah, fine, this is it.”

Graham says: “No, this is definitely not the edge of the hill. This is a sharp line and hills do not have shap edges. Thus, it is determinate that this is not the edge and we know it.”

Gareth goes far into the valley and draws another line in the ground, then comes back to Graham and states: “I think we can all agree that that line I just drew is definitely not the edge of the hill, right? I do not think we can say the same thing about this line Bert drew here.It must be clear that if we wanted to sharpen – to precify – the edge of the hill, we could end up with a line like Bert’s but there is not way that we could end up with a line like the one I just drew. If we only said that this line is determinately not the edge just like that other line I just drew is also determinately not the edge of the hill, we loose this distinction.”

Graham continues: “Yes, Gareth, it is true that if we wanted to precisify the edge of the hill, we could end up with a line like this, but this does not mean that this line could or might be the edge of the hill. There is some sort of modality involved in precification thus understood, but this is not the usual alethic, epistemic or deontic modalities that you think; it must be a sui-generis sort of modality.”